NEWS

AI victory over Go champion shows computers may be capable of creativity

South Korean professional Go player Lee Sedol reviews the match after finishing the third match of the Google DeepMind Challenge Match against Google's artificial intelligence program, AlphaGo, in Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, March 12, 2016. (Lee Jin-man/AP)

14:30 12 Mar 2016
Ruairi Casey
14:30 Saturday 12 March 2016

Scientists say computers are beginning to show signs of creativity after Google's artificial intelligence programme beat one of the world's top players of the complicated board game "Go" overnight.

The AlphaGo program beat South Korea's Lee Sedol in a best-of-five contest, who is the holder of 18 international titles.

Even the designers of the programme said they were surprised by their latest victory.

Mark Keane is Chair of Computer Science at UCD - he says it's a significant step:

"It's much more like intuition and creativity," he said.

"Several commentators have said that the machine is making moves that humans would never have made, and they turn out to be very good moves."